Her ladyship adds to the gaiety of the nation, says Bernadette McNulty

Thank goodness for Lady Gaga. The bonkers blonde from New York has single-handedly rescued a week that on paper should be one of the high points of the entertainment calendar, but instead was fast becoming a car crash of disappointment. Punctuated by the Oscars at one end and the start of Paris Fashion Week at the other, the dreary, fag-end of February should be a final raging of all that glitters to carry us into a new spring. It should be a week of glamorous visual fantasies that we mortals can gorge on in our grey reality.

What we got instead was a dark mirror to an age of anxiety. The red carpet outside the Hollywood Kodak theatre groaned with actresses prettily but boringly styled while Paris was rocked by the ugly implosion of its revered designer John Galliano.

The party felt like a damp squib until Stefani Germanotta, otherwise known as Lady Gaga, arrived on Wednesday, making her catwalk debut at the Thierry Mugler show.

Her white latex dress, giant lampshade hat and fake pigtails seemed conservative compared with the raw meat dress she sported last year, although it is still not a look to be replicated on the high street. Yet that is exactly what makes Lady Gaga, who in just over a year has conquered the world of pop, a joyful blast of fresh air in these fearful times.

The last time a pop star made such a splash on the catwalk was a decade ago when Victoria Beckham turned out for Maria Grachvogel in a pair of hot pants and boots. It was an outfit that told the story of the Noughties, how glamour was something that could be attained by anyone, whether through a bottle of St Tropez fake tan or a Louis Vuitton handbag. Pop stars from Kylie Minogue to Lily Allen looked just like us, only with better stylists. Even Madonna was more often to be seen in a sensible pencil skirt than ripped fishnets or conical bra.

But the arrival of Lady Gaga has saved us from the tyranny of the safe, the mundane or, in the case of Galliano, the downright depressing. The extremity of her look is not designed to make her more beautiful than the rest of us – it is meant to look unlike anything we have seen before and, going by the rate of her costume changes, we will see again. It is meant to inspire us with the idea that anything is possible. And, just as important, she is funny. Like a cross between

Derek Zoolander and Dr Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Show, Gaga embraces and celebrates the ridiculousness of high fashion.

Despite being awarded three Brits last year, Gaga is no musical genius. Her latest single, Born this Way, is like a speeded-up rehash of Madonna’s Express Yourself and a lot of her songs have a histrionic, sledgehammer quality. But they are all written by her and sung with operatic commitment, and they celebrate pop music as a global life force, with choruses big enough for the world to sing along to.

And, clearly, as she showed when she stalked down the catwalk on Wednesday, she adores being a beacon. There is an infectious joy to Lady Gaga’s delight in being able to stop us in our tracks, to make us gawp – and sing.

While her fashion seems daring after a decade of dull tastefulness, Gaga stands in a line of our most beloved, larger-than-life entertainers – Grace Jones, Freddie Mercury, Elton John and Liberace – who saw it as their duty to be exceptional for us.